Valencia and Real Madrid

By: Cesar | June 18th, 2009

I found some of Florentino Perez’s comments today regarding David Villa and the tension between Real Madrid and Valencia interesting.

While the man’s arrogance knows no bounds, he’s adept at building winning football clubs. At least his checkbook is.

The Madrid president said that while Villa’s transfer was a question of time, there was no real antagonism between the two sides.

“Everything is being done in a friendly and cooperative way and we have good relations with Valencia. This isn’t a movie with a good and a bad side. It’s a case of rival and historic clubs who are going to fight for the league title. I don’t know if historically there’s been problems between the two clubs. With me there wasn’t a problem and of course now, there won’t be.”

I find these comments interesting.

Historically, there’s been tension between the two clubs.

Three cases in point, two having to do with transfers:

1 – The transfer saga of Pedja Mijatovic in 1996, who broke many Valencian hearts by going to the capital city. While Villa’s move wouldn’t be the same emotionally, this issue touched off many an incendiary note against Real Madrid.

The transfer was seen as a slap in the face by many. Mijatovic had a successful career at Madrid, helping Los Merengues win their first Champions League in 32 years by scoring the decisive goal against Juventus in the final.

But he was never forgiven for leaving the Mestalla. His first game back in Valencia was an emotional hurricane, with fans booing his every touch and insults being hurled in every direction.

Think Luis Figo going back to the Nou Camp with Madrid, sans the pig head.

VCF fans so hated Mijatovic they traveled across town to Levante’s Ciudad de Valencia stadium just to boo him when he closed out his career with our city rivals.

Not fun.

2 – The Champions League final in 2000. The first time two teams from the same country played each other for the European Cup. Unfortunately, we came out on the losing end of a 3-0 scoreline.

If anything, this was more personal, as Madrid fans taunted VCF fans for the loss. Obviously, it hurts to lose a final. It hurts even more when you lose to a team from your country.

The Valencia region has tons of transplanted Madridistas. I’m sure they got their kicks from defeating the local team for the European Cup.

3 – The transfer saga of captain Gaizka Mendieta was simple. He wanted to go to Real Madrid. We said no and sold him to Lazio, where he failed miserably before coming back to Spain with Barcelona.

The fact of the matter was that we simply wouldn’t sell him to Madrid, as much as he wanted to go. But the fact that he DID want to go to Madrid hurt VCF fans more. How could this guy, who had spent so much time with the team (8 years) want to go to them?

The rivalry has cooled some over the years from it’s white hot blaze in the early ’00’s.

I’m not sure the transfer of Villa to Madrid would necessarily liven up the rivalry. We need the money. They have it. Case closed.

I just find it odd that Perez would say we’ve had friendly relations. That’s not what I’ve seen in the time I’ve been a VCF fan.

It’s been heated, intense and passionate.

The games between the two clubs have also been fiery battles.

But I think every club in Spain ‘gets up’ to play the two big teams – Madrid and Barcelona. It’s always a special day when you play the best teams in the country. That’s how I feel, anyways.

Still, I’ll never forget the first Madrid-VCF match I saw at the Mestalla, watching a senior citizen throw a glass soda bottle at the Madrid bus as it made it’s way to the Mestalla, yelling ‘Hijos de puta.’

Or the pure venom I received from Madrid fans in Madrid when I wore my VCF kit around the city.

I’ll leave you with this one final anecdote that sort of tells you the entire story …

My friend’s friend had a baby. The family decided to call their child Raul. Not after the player Raul. They just liked the name.

Well, my friend went ballistic. All of her friends, who detested Real Madrid, went ballistic.

Long story short? They kindly asked the couple to change the name of the baby from Raul to something more proper, as they couldn’t take to a child with that name.

The couple changed the name.

The power of football!! Amunt!